


Play Along

by cranperryjuice



Series: Tumblr Prompts [3]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Concussions, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:00:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27352357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cranperryjuice/pseuds/cranperryjuice
Summary: In which Geralt speedruns through Chapter 1 of The Witcher 2 by way of playing nurse for Iorveth and also sucking dick.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Iorveth
Series: Tumblr Prompts [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1997596
Comments: 1
Kudos: 42





	Play Along

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr prompt: Canon divergence + meet messy + "Play along."

Geralt crept forward toward the sound of the flute, Vernon and Triss following behind him, and blinked when he saw the elf perched atop the tree branch as if waiting for them. Iorveth certainly had a flair for the dramatic. He stood when he saw them and gestured toward Vernon with his flute.

"Vernon Roche! Special Forces Commander for the last four years. Servant of the Temerian king. Responsible for the pacification of the Mahakaman foot—" Another sweeping arm gesture had made him lose his balance, it seemed, and he teetered precariously at the edge of the branch, flailing, before slipping off it.

He hit the ground with a loud thump, and Vernon barked out a laugh beside him. "Serves you right, you grandiose son of a whore."

Iorveth wasn't moving. Geralt heard faint rustling up in the bushes on the cliffside, above them — Iorveth's men, no doubt.

"This could be a trap," Triss said, looking around.

Iorveth was very, very still. "Don't think so."

"Then let's take him in. We can interrogate him in Flotsam." Vernon stepped forward, and Geralt threw an arm out at chest level, stopping him.

"His archers are up on the cliff. They'll shoot us if we try to take him." He watched Iorveth for a few more seconds, wondering how to break the ridiculous impasse. The archers would have to take the long way around in order to come down and help him, but they wouldn't leave their position with Vernon Roche, a sorceress and a witcher still standing over him. He sighed, then simply put both of his hands up and raised his head to shout up to Iorveth's men. "Don't shoot. I'll help him."

"Help him?" Vernon repeated, sneering.

Geralt took a couple of steps forward, experimentally, and heard no sound from above. He approached Iorveth and crouched next to him. "Hey. You conscious?"

Iorveth groaned and curled in on himself, clutching the side of his head with one hand.

"He's faking," Vernon called out. "Be careful."

"Look at me," Geralt said, ignoring him. Iorveth raised his head and squinted up at him, then closed his eye tightly and covered it with his free hand, cursing in the Elder Speech. "Great. Went and gave yourself a concussion, didn't you?"

No answer came. Geralt stood and walked back to Vernon and Triss. "I'll escort him to safety. You go on to Flotsam and see what you can find out."

"What?!" Vernon wasn't happy — no surprise there. "I'm not letting you leave with _Iorveth_. Do you have any idea how many of my men he's killed?"

"We'll never find the kingslayer if we take him in. His Scoia'tael will warn him and he'll slip away. Let me do this. I'll meet you in Flotsam." He turned and went to Iorveth again. He'd sat up, eye still squeezed shut, and was rubbing at his head through his scarf.

"Be careful," Triss told him. He gave her a nod over his shoulder and she and Vernon left toward Flotsam, muttering to each other.

"My men will... will shoot you if you hurt me," Iorveth ground out through his teeth, looking rather unsteady even sitting down.

"Uh huh. Can you stand?"

He gave it a valiant try, pushing himself to his feet and managing to straighten up most of the way before swaying sideways and falling down again. "One— one moment."

"No. We're too close to Flotsam. Gotta get you outta here before somebody spots you." He reached for Iorveth, then paused. "Call your men off. I'm picking you up."

Geralt suspected Iorveth wasn't the kind of man who liked to be carried, but he must have been in too much pain to protest. He gave a half-hearted scowl but waved his archers away. Geralt waited until he heard their retreating footsteps, then picked Iorveth up and tossed him over his shoulder. "Just had to bloviate at us from a tree branch, huh?"

"Shut up," Iorveth's voice floated up from behind him, sounding more unsteady than angry. Geralt shook his head to himself and headed away from Flotsam, back toward the beach and then up into the forest. It wasn't long before Iorveth spoke up again. "Put me down." His fingers scrabbled clumsily at Geralt's back. "Vatt'ghern. _Put me down_."

Something about the tone of his voice made Geralt stop, and as soon as he put Iorveth down he crawled away on all fours and retched into the underbrush. All that came up was bile, and Geralt thought about how light the elf had been, even wrapped up as he was in chainmail and leather.

"Why are you helping me?" Iorveth ground out once he was done, sitting back and wiping his mouth on the back of his gloved hand. "You're with Roche."

"Came here with him. Doesn't mean I like him." He crouched down and this time Iorveth was able to meet his eyes, though he was still squinting against the sunlight. "I'm looking for the kingslayer. I've been accused of Foltest's murder."

"Pity. He's under my protection."

"Why? You think he's killing kings because he cares about elf rights? He's using you."

Iorveth shook his head, then winced and raised a hand to his temple. "I... I care little what you think, vatt'ghern. We're working toward a greater purpose."

He still looked rather green. Geralt sighed. "You have a camp nearby?"

"Yes."

"I'll take you there." He made to grab Iorveth again, but the elf held up a hand, stopping him.

"No. I'll be sick again."

"Then walk." Geralt stood and held out a hand, and Iorveth managed to pull himself up after taking a deep, steadying breath. He spat onto the ground, then started walking unsteadily, holding on to Geralt for balance.

Iorveth's men caught up to them before long — four of them, bows out, winded from running through the forest. "Iorveth," one of them said, eyeing Geralt as if waiting to see whether they'd receive orders to shoot him.

Iorveth waved a hand at them dismissively. "We're headed to camp," he started, and it looked like he'd wanted to say something more, but he hissed in pain and closed his eye, relying on Geralt's guidance to keep walking.

"One of you run ahead and get a bedroll ready," Geralt said in his stead. "And a fire. I'll need boiling water."

"Do as he says," Iorveth added much more quietly.

It took some time to reach the camp. It wasn't much — a narrow gap in a rock wall that opened up into a small, low-ceilinged cave, with a few bedrolls spread around a small fire and a set of old crates serving as rudimentary stools. There were three more elves waiting there — one led Iorveth away from him he collapsed onto a bedroll, breathing heavily. He was pale and sweating from the short walk.

"What's wrong with him?" a woman asked, shooting Geralt an accusatory glare.

"He hit his head," one of the archers responded, and it seemed he respected Iorveth too much to offer any further detail. Vernon would have no such scruples; Geralt suspected that most of Flotsam would have heard the story by the time he got there.

He sat by the fire and set about making a potion, similar to one he'd use on himself but diluted enough that it wouldn't harm an elf — something to help with the pain in his head and settle his stomach. The elf woman stood staring at him suspiciously, and he showed her the dried herbs and ingredients as he pulled them from his satchel. Once he'd gotten the lot of them brewing, she gave him a grudging nod and went to sit by Iorveth's side.

"You his lover?" Geralt asked to fill the silence, stirring the contents of the small pot over the flames.

"He'd have to hit his head a lot harder than this to lie with a woman," one of the elves muttered in the Elder Speech somewhere behind him, and a few of them snorted in response. Geralt filed the information away into a corner of his mind. The woman pressed her lips together and glared at him, apparently unamused by her friend's jest.

"Fine, don't talk to me. Still with us, Iorveth?"

Iorveth's jaw was clenched tight and his eye still closed, but he gave a small nod.

"Try to stay awake. I'm making something for the pain."

Someone gave Iorveth water, which he promptly threw up. Geralt snatched the empty mug and filled it with his concoction while the woman mopped up the mess with a rag. He watched the small group for a few moments as he blew on the hot liquid. They looked pale and drawn, all of them, and stank of hunger and exhaustion. He sighed and set the mug down. "Make him drink this once it's cooled down. All of it, slowly. There's more in the pot if he can't keep it down."

He stood. They eyed each other but let him go without a word, and he headed deeper into the forest.

He came back to the cave later, carrying two rabbits, a handful of wild carrots and some mushrooms. There were only two elves left with Iorveth — the woman and one of the archers. The rest of them had been up in the trees when he'd approached, standing guard, but they'd let him pass without comment again. He set the food down near the fire, then added a few potatoes and some plums from his satchel.

Both elves stared at the food silently, their stomachs growling, audible even over the crackling flames. Geralt sighed impatiently. He hated seeing elves reduced to this — their stubborn pride only made it worse. "Take it. He'll feel better if you get some food into him."

He turned to Iorveth, who was still lying on his bedroll, curled under a blanket with most of his armor discarded around him. When Geralt sat down, he opened his eye and seemed to have an easier time focusing on him than he'd had before. "Gwynbleidd."

"Geralt," Geralt corrected.

"Gwynbleidd is a much better name."

"Fine. How do you feel?"

Iorveth's eye fluttered shut. "Strange. Dizzy, if I try to sit up."

"It'll pass in a few days if you get enough rest." The elves were rustling around behind him, chopping the food and skinning the rabbits. He left them to it, keeping his focus on their leader. "Gonna tell me where the kingslayer is, now? Just want to talk to him."

"Lies aren’t a good look on you, Gwynbleidd." His eye opened again. "You've got much kinder eyes than the other vatt'ghern does."

Kind eyes weren't something Geralt had ever been accused of having before. He blinked. "Yeah, well. If you're just going to _compliment_ me in exchange for saving your life, might as well get out of here and look for him myself. Hope Roche doesn't find you like this in the meantime."

He didn't even make it to his feet before Iorveth wormed one hand out of his blanket, touching his leg to stop him. "Wait. They have Ciaran, my second in command. He's being held in Flotsam on a prison barge. Find a way to free him and I might set up a meeting with the kingslayer."

Well, that was much more of a lead than what they'd arrived to Flotsam with. He gave a short nod. "I'll see what I can do."

***

The next two days passed in a mad blur — he'd met Dandelion and Zoltan (who'd narrowly escaped the gallows thanks to Triss and Vernon's intervention), hunted for ostmurk, killed the kayran, and finally broken Ciaran out of the prison barge in the dead of the night with the help of Triss, who'd had to mend what had looked like half of the poor bastard's bones before he'd even been able to walk.

He collapsed into one of the inn's dirty beds, slept like the dead for a few hours, then dragged himself back out and into the forest to seek out Iorveth again.

He checked the cave first, and this time one of the sentries up in the trees greeted him with a nearly cheerful "ceádmil" as he walked by. He figured that probably meant Ciaran had found his way back to the group and put him firmly into the Scoia'tael's good graces. "Good afternoon," he replied in the Elder Speech, and the elf frowned at him from between the leaves of his tree. Geralt recognized him as the one who'd mumbled about Iorveth in front of him; maybe that'd teach him not to run his mouth around strangers.

Iorveth was alone in the cave and seemed to have heeded Geralt's recommendation to rest; he was still on his bedroll despite the late hour, propped up on one elbow and working on a piece of waybread. "Gwynbleidd," he said warmly in greeting. "Ciaran came back to us this morning. I'm in your debt."

"Twice, now," Geralt replied, but couldn't bring himself to mind much. There was one fewer elf in prison, and Loredo was probably pissed off. Win-win. "Feeling better?"

"Mostly. My head still hurts at times, and I tire easily."

"Like I said, give it a few days." He sat down and Iorveth held out his waybread silently. Geralt blinked at the offering, then broke off a piece. "Thanks. What about Ciaran?"

"He's doing better than he ought to be. He said they beat him to within an inch of his life and left him to die in his cell." Iorveth's expression had darkened, and he dropped the rest of his waybread as if his appetite had suddenly left him. "I'll make sure his captors suffer just as long."

"Mm." Geralt tried his piece. It was bland, but better than a lot of the things he ate on the road. "He isn't just your second in command, then."

Iorveth's eye narrowed. "What are you asking, vatt'ghern?"

He shrugged. "Heard one of your men talk about you the other day. Don't think he realized I could understand him."

"I don't know what you heard, but you must have misunderstood. Ciaran isn't my type."

"So what is your type? Witchers?" Geralt asked, then had time to ask himself what the hell he was doing during the short silence that followed. The opening had been too perfect, and he'd reacted the way he would have had any beautiful woman been in Iorveth's place. A stupid reflex.

The corners of Iorveth's mouth quirked up into a small smile. "Certainly not Letho."

Letho — now Geralt had a name, and perhaps that had been worth a moment's awkward silence. He popped the rest of the waybread into his mouth, chewing slowly as he thought. He couldn't recall hearing the name anywhere, but that didn't mean much; there were a lot of things he couldn't recall.

"Ciaran filled me in on how he was captured. It seems you were right to distrust Letho. He tried to convince Ciaran to betray me and take over the unit. A fight broke out when he refused. Some of my men died."

"Where is he now?"

Iorveth hesitated only briefly before speaking. "He usually stays near the ruins of Cáelmewedd."

"The baths?" Geralt asked. Iorveth nodded. The ruins weren't far, but Geralt could hardly go on his own — he didn't know what kind of mutation his School was into, but Letho was built like a brick shithouse. And Iorveth was in no state to help, so he'd have to go back to Flotsam and—

"Iorveth." One of the sentries poked his head into the cave. "Letho's coming."

"Shit," Geralt hissed. Letho couldn't see him here. He'd smell him, though, even if he managed to leave without being spotted. He heard the sound of Letho's heavy footsteps outside and tried to think of a plan.

Iorveth had been thrown off-balance, too. He stared at Geralt, green eye searching his, then grabbed at the edge of his jerkin and pulled. "Come here," he said quietly in the Elder Speech. "Play along."

They'd been through too much over the span of a couple of days for Geralt not to trust him. He let himself be maneuvered around by the elf, unsure what was happening until he found himself lying between his legs. Iorveth flipped his blanket over him, covering his upper body, and Geralt groaned when he realized what the plan was.

"Iorveth," Letho called out, and Geralt heard his armor scraping against the edges of the cave opening as he made his way inside.

"I don't want to be bothered. Come back later."

He'd slowed his breathing down and was doing a decent job at sounding distracted, his voice low and his fingers creeping into Geralt's hair. Still a stupid plan, though, because Letho would be able to smell Geralt, and then smell that Iorveth wasn't even aroused. Unless...

"What are you playing at? We both know who that is."

Unless he _was_ aroused. Geralt palmed at Iorveth's cock through his trousers, resisting the urge to shake his head at how his stay in Flotsam was going, and Iorveth's breath hitched above him. "And?" he asked Letho.

"He's here with Roche. Am I supposed to think this is a coincidence?"

Geralt squeezed Iorveth's cock. It was stirring in his hand — wasn't just his _kind eyes_ Iorveth had been admiring, that much was clear. He started working on the fastenings of Iorveth's trousers. "I don't care what you think, Letho. He helped one of us break out of the prison barge."

"And— and his reward is to _suck your cock_?" Letho retorted with a disbelieving snort.

Geralt rolled his eyes as he pulled Iorveth out of his trousers. He'd sucked a cock or two before, _decades_ ago during a particularly cold, lonely winter at Kaer Morhen, but hadn't felt the urge since and hadn't exactly shouted it from the rooftops, either. His reputation would never recover from this — kingslayer and cocksucker. "It seems some of your kind can appreciate the finer things," Iorveth said, then moaned softly as Geralt put his tongue on him. He was playing up his reactions, Geralt knew, but he still felt his own treacherous cock twitch in response to the low, breathless sound.

Well, at least there'd be no mistaking the smell that was coming off of him now. Off of them both. There was a long pause, which Geralt filled by pressing open-mouthed kisses to the head of Iorveth's swelling cock and flicking his tongue over it, knowing Letho could _hear_ him.

Finally there was the scrape of Letho's boots against the ground as he took a step back. "We'll talk later," he muttered, sounding a little lost. He left, adding "fucking elves" under his breath as he went, and Geralt rumbled out a laugh around Iorveth's cock, now hot and heavy in his mouth.

Iorveth pulled the blanket off. He'd acquired a pretty flush across his sharp face, and his eye was hooded as he watched him. "You can stop," he said in the Elder Speech even as he tilted his hips, pushing himself deeper in.

Geralt paused, considering. He was hard, too, and he shifted uncomfortably against the cold ground, reaching down to adjust himself. Iorveth groaned at the sight and let his head thump back to his bedroll. And then he groaned in pain, having apparently landed on the bruised spot on his head. Geralt snorted, slid one hand up under his shirt and onto his stomach to hold him still, and kept sucking.


End file.
